Description
What are Kissing Fish?
Our blown glass kissing fish are one of a kind, handcrafted tabletop sculptures that are made with love. We sculpt each fish using molten furnace glass and concentrated glass colors. Using several layers of glass and color, we make them very thick and durable. We expect they will last for many generations to come, as these beautiful sea creatures make you laugh and smile and add whimsy to your life! Right now, we are making these little cuties to order, so you can select from a variety of colors, including opaque solids with dichroic glass pieces or one of our Robbins Ranch Art Glass Color Mixes. We typically create our blown glass kissing fish with black eyes and red lips. However, you can request other colors when ordering. We are currently creating a standard size of approximately 9″l x 6″h x 3.5″w. But we can also make fish that are slightly smaller or larger, for a custom grouping or school of fish. Please specify when ordering fish if you would prefer a standard size or something special as well as color preference.
How do we make them?
As we dip into a tank of molten glass, we gather some clear on the end of a blow pipe. Carefully bringing the gather of glass to a steel table, we roll into a pile of concentrated color chips. Rolling several times and reheating, we create a layer of color on top of the clear.
Next we take another gather of clear to encase the color and add volume to the piece. Depending on the size fish, we might take 2 or 3 gathers of color and clear, layering and reheating between each layer. As we work, we continually put the end of the blowpipe into the reheating oven, to keep the glass hot and at a moving temperature of about 2000 degrees.
We shape the hot glass using wood blocks soaked in water. The block cradles the end of the pipe and forms the hot glass into a ball. As we blow out the kissing fish, we manipulate the glass with steel tools and shape it. We puff air on the end of the pipe and the glass begins to enlarge from the inside out. We continue to shape the glass with steel jacks and other various tools.
Hot bits of clear are added to the fish and pulled out to become the fins of the fish. Dana sculpts with various metal tools until he is happy with the shape of the body and its fins.
Once we have completed the body, adding 3 fins and eyes, its time to transfer the fish to another rod, so we can make the lips where the blow pipe used to be. We bring a solid metal pipe with a bit of hot clear, over to the bottom of the fish. We quickly stick it to the belly of the piece. The pipe with the bit of clear bonds temporarily to the fish and now we can transfer the the glass from blowpipe to the solid rod. After chilling the neck of the fish with cold water, we make a sharp strike on the end of the blowpipe to break the glass off and keep it stuck to the solid punty rod.
What is a kissing fish without lips?! You got to have big plump lips on these creatures. So, we take a hot bit of clear from the furnace with a solid steel pipe. Then we roll into a pile of red glass color chips laying on the steel table. As we pick up the color and melt it into the clear, we shape the blob into a small tube. Then we reheat the color and stick it onto the opened mouth of the fish. The fish gets a quick reheat with a blob of red stuck to the open mouth. Next, we do a quick swipe with a big butter knife, on red blob lips to make it smile, and the fish is complete. Last reheat, and we safely remove the fish from the pipe and put it into the annealing oven to cool overnight.
The next day, after a slow cooling cycle, the blown glass kissing fish are pulled from the oven, and placed on a table to rest. Once they have a chance to fully and safely cool, we sign and date each one and photograph. We then carefully wrap and store them, waiting to be displayed at our next show and adopted.
Check out our Etsy Shop for some of the other items we have in stock!
For more information about real live kissing fish, here is a link for you to check out… https://www.hygger-online.com/fish-profile-why-do-kissing-fish-kiss/
